Puff Everlasting: Evergreen
by Alicorn
Summary: She should have been with her sisters, she even wanted to be... It was too bad, then, that the old Buttercup was dead. AU, future Ace/Buttercup/May Add To Someday/


_Author's Note: This was all started by a simple question: What if the girl's powers grew as they aged? This, mixed with ideas for a Gangreen origin story, is what started this short two part story in my head. It is the first of (hopefully) three set in this AU future. _

**Puff Everlasting: _Evergreen_**

"That day." was all that the human race could ever think to call it.

In more than a hundred countries, in over twenty languages, even the most learned of literary figures had lost all of their gifts for fancier titling. For a day, a single day, had left its mark on the world...a mark felt no more deeply than in the City of Townsville.

The deep crater that once was the famous Townsville Volcano bubbled within its manmade circular steel dam, the complex pumping system that Utonium Industries had constructed lending a contented hum to Townville Park.

The lava emanated a peaceful orange glow to match the approaching sunset, contrasting sharply with the few patches of green grass that were just now regrowing over the blackened patch of earth.

Two months ago, this place would have been full of citizens enjoying a lazy Saturday with a last game of Frisbee and cheerful greetings.

But now, somehow, even the ground itself seemed to mourn the lost of those that had done it the most good... and the most destruction.

A group that was now just a memory to all that have seen that day...A group called the Powerpuff girls.

By all accounts, a certain member of that far away memory should had been with her sisters...It was a shame, then, that Buttercup was officially dead.

* * *

_Two months earlier..._

* * *

The crumpled form of a tall man in his early fifties had long ago given up any hopes of containing his emotions and was bent over on his knees, tears flowing down his cheeks.

The grey patches in his hair gave what could be seen of his face the appearance of an extra ten years where his sat, a frazzled shadow in the otherwise neat main office of Townsville City Hall.

His voice was as worn and aged as his appearce when it broke the silence again.

"Please, please... You can't do this, you really can't mean that you actually except them to..."

The imposing representative crossed her arms over her powder blue pants suit where she sat in the seat normally occupied by the mayor, even her short blonde hair ending in a neat, business-like curl.

"We don't _expect_, we of the United Nations are _ordering_ them to take this action Sir. There is really nothing more to be said in the matter."

She pushed a piece of paper across the desk, its official golden seal catching the dim light of the desk lamp nearby. Professor winced at the slight rustle as if rattled by an invisible blow, still not looking upward.

"But they're my precious _little_ girls, please you have to understand, they were only..and they were just starting _college_ and..."

"They are no more 'little' than you or I, Mr. Utonium, they are of legal age as of today, and they are a danger to everyone. _Everyone_." The woman's voice ended in an icy note.

"They..they were only doing their job...they're not evil..please..I just _lost_ ..." The inventor's dry mouth ended his words with a choking cough before he tried again. "Please I don't know what I would do _without_ them all..."

The representative sighed, for the first time showing the smallest hint of emotion as she looked from the heartbroken man to the glass of water upon the desktop.

"Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Utonium, I don't have a heart of stone. I'm a mother myself..I can't even imagine the grief you must be feeling."

The business woman picked up the glass, her eyes distant as she stared into it's depths.

"But if you could only..for a moment...think of that grief. Now think of that sadness multiplied a thousand, a million, a _billion_ times over..._that's_ the sadness your girls will bring if they continue to stay here..If their _powers_... "

The representatives words were cut short by another sigh, this one so soft that it could have only been a trick of the night, followed by the drained miserable words of a fallen solder who had at last seen one battle too many.

"I...I'll talk to them."

"I'm sure they will do what is best." The representative said with a gentle edge.

"They...always do..." Came the simple whisper.

* * *

"But why Ace? Why do we keep doin' this huh?" Little Arturo asked, hopping up on his short legs to get his leader's attention.

"With da Powderpuff's gone now we could be all, you know, getting rich and stuff. Just like the good ol' days"

Ace glared where he was climbing down after Arturo on the manhole ladder, giving the little man a smart rap on the head.

"If ya keep on whining every time go 'n we do this, pretty soon ya won't be able to _remember_ the good ol' days, got it?"

"Dah, what we getting' again?" Big Billy asked, as he reached the narrow sewer walkway with a huge thud at last, providing the oversized pillow that was his stomach for the rest of the gang to jump down on, one after another.

"We're getting the fulfillment of Ace's loco obsession, that's what." Little Arturo said rolling his eyes, only to be met with another retort in the form of Snake's fist.

"Hey, Ace isn't crazy! It'sss just better to be sssafe than sssorry. Right, Ace?"

"Right you are, Snake my man, 'sides...It's kinda our jobs after so many years...Aw, would ya look at Billy and Grubber there? Just like Christmas to the dumb lugs..."

Ace, Snake and Little Arturo trotted slowly after the speeding Big Billy and Goober, the two happily twirling as they danced to an invisible game of 'ring around the rosie', clearing a path though a parted sea of startled sewer rats.

"Ya know Snakes, I really hope we don't find nothin'..." Ace said, his sneakers echoing on the stained and broken stone of the path.

"Yeah...The lassst time was real...sssad..." His friend nodded, the normally mischievous gleam in his eyes lost to thought.

Her hands had never felt so cold.

How long? Weeks? Months? Years?

All the same in this sewer, dark shadowed places for everything that the upper world threw away, or had never even truly held to began with...

She flexed her fingers, watching the dim filtered light through a storm drain hint at the swift from green to white fresh.

The extended reach still threw off targeted attacks by an inch ...and the toes...

The best punching walls were near the surface here, barely warding off traces of hypothermia with warm less dizzying fumes.

Not that she could even smell them anymore.

Useless.

Whenever she stopped long enough to have a thought, there it was, ringing...baiting.

Useless and ugly.

She should have been with her sisters. She wanted to be...

It was a shame then, that the old Buttercup, the one that could even do that right, was dead.

Useless.

Can't even fly.

Buttercup winced, pounding the long dented wall in front of her to the echo of memories..memories of bright voices.

"There's only one chance girls, we have to drive it into a flow with magnetic elements of the outer core level !"

"But it's still in testing, we have no idea what..."

"Can it Bubbles, we've gotten out of worst before!"

" But this is _different_, whoever's at the blast bottom point has to..."

"I'll do it! I'll pull up in time and give 'em a heck all the way down!"

"Buttercup! Abort! Abort!"

"I can take it!"

Heat. Unbearable heat. The demi-god they'd been interlocked with, tempted to Earth...

Flesh sizzling, metal armor breaking apart to scarlet internals.

Like any other monster

...like any other.

Monster.

She leaned into the long gaping hole, glowing with the feeble remains of green tinted power.

They were gone.

Raining concrete dust mixed with tears wiped across bloody knuckles.

Of course, they had no reason to stay...

"Hey, you guys hear that?"

She froze, pulling her arm away from the wall and skittering into a drainage pipe with the nimble grace of a mouse.

"Hear what Ace?"

Her eyes widened in the darkness, their washed out green coloring nearly lost to pitch black pupils.

"Somethin' strange that goes 'bump' in the evening?"

The voices. She knew them! But no, it couldn't be...

Grime encrusted hi-tops splashed with a happy enthusiasm right pass her hiding spot at that very moment with a booming stride, making her bite a thin, misshapen lip to hold in a gasp.

"Oh yeah, we gotta big one this time all right, must weight as Big Billy ta be makin' that noise..."

The voice, warm like...She edged toward the pipe opening again, the promise of anything familiar beckoning.

"I make noise Ace?" Big Billy bellowed, his face filling her vision from the metal enclosure and wrestling a small startled sound from her throat...

The punch that followed not even leaving a cut on the giant's jaw.

"'Course ya...Hey..hey..easy...whata ya know..it's a little one..."

Snake weaved around his leaders head in the background, others above him crowding to get a better look.

"Awww...she'ssss cute..."

She crawled backward a step, clinching her remaining trailing rags of clothing to herself, toes curled under in the dark sewage.

"C'mon, c'mon there, ol' uncle Ace ain't gonna hurt ya..."

Ace. That was his name. But the face that came with it. A smile she didn't know.

The tall figure in a ripped snow-vest, swatting down in dirty jeans and faded leather books, offering her ...what?

A gentle look after he took off his sunglasses, darting to her own before staring at the ground.

"Yeahm between you 'n me, we're the best welcome wagon in this here city for helpn' greenlings, even if it is crossing paths with its own shady waste disposal system that does it, they don't make a habit of care'n much."

"Billy like green." Big Billy grinned, patting her arm very lightly with enormous fingers.

Ace elbowed him to the side with the fill force of his slim back, placing his glasses back on the bridge of his nose.

"What my undereducated associate is tryin' to say is being green doesn't suck as much as bein' dead, why a couple ah years after..."

"Says you, dumpster boy." The girl replied for the first time.

Her voice was cracked, hardened under the weight of not speaking.

"What's your name?" The leader of the Gangreen Gang asked, offering a wide hand to the newcomer.

A slightly smaller green hand clasped his in return, pulling herself up into the dim light.

"Bu...Belladonna. My name's...Belladonna."

Ace smiled.

Buttercup should have been with her sisters, she even wanted to be.

It was a shame, then, that Buttercup was dead.


End file.
